Tips Guides

If there’s one truth in operating a successful, profitable law firm, it’s this: you have to make more than you spend. In order to achieve this, you need clients cycling through your practice on a continuous basis; both new and repeat alike. While that’s obvious enough to see, making it happen is often another story.

Law firm marketing isn’t that much different than marketing any other kind of service business. With that in mind, you set about the task of getting the word out about whom you are, where you can be found and what services you offer. You place ads in local papers, several popular magazines, on the radio and even a few late night television spots. The consummate law firm marketing plan. Much money and time have been invested and anticipation is high. Then it happens: nothing.

Maybe it’s just a time factor. Give it a little more time and you’ll start to see some real results from all your time and money invested in advertising. But today is just like yesterday and after a while there are no real expectations that tomorrow will be any different. Many of your colleagues are doing well. You went to law school with some of them and know first hand they are no smarter than you. What is it they know that you don’t? What is it in their law firm marketing plan that sets them apart from you?

Traditional advertising is one of the least effective forms of law firm marketing. Unfortunately, most lawyers equate marketing with advertising. The result is that you have wasted money and have no new prospective clients to show for it. Here are three major reasons why advertising in the traditional sense does not work.

1. It does not move people along in the sales cycle. It’s only effective in the first stage when the client is getting to know you. It will not increase your likability or sense of trustworthiness.

2. Frequent advertising is too costly for most budgets. In his book “Guerilla Marketing Attack,” Jay Levinson discusses a study conducted on advertising research quoted here in part: “Following a year-long study, researchers concluded that a law firm marketing message must penetrate the mind of a prospect a total of nine times before that prospect becomes a customer.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that for every three times you expose your prospect to your marketing message, it gets missed or ignored two of those times. So you’ve got to put out the good word about your company a total of 27 times in order to make those nine impressions.”

3. Most ads are often poorly designed or written, even to the point of being boring instead of influencing your target market.

With so many other forces vying for the time and attention of your target audience, advertisements live and die by the quality of the ad and the offer it extends. Most law firms list their services or give a couple “reasons” why they are the better law firm. Neither of which does anything to distinguish them from other lawyers in the same practice area.

There are certain advertising strategies you must remember when conducting any form of law firm marketing. For example, the size of your budget must be adequate to meet the demand. Be sure you have a large enough budget to expose your marketing message to your ideal target market. You need to be able to do this repeatedly over the course of the year using the same advertising medium.

In other words, if your advertising medium of choice is the radio, your budget should allow for weekly advertising on the same radio station for a full year. If this is out of your budget range, reduce the size of your market, increase your ad budget or change your advertising medium to a less expensive one.

For example, if you plan to advertise weekly in a local paper, but the largest one in the area is beyond your present budget, start with the weekly suburban paper instead.

What does all this mean? Focus your law firm marketing efforts on methods that actually work. Don’t waste your time and budget on marketing that is not designed to produce the right results. Focus on your target audience, the best way for you to reach them and the most attractive way to present your services in order to keep them.

Stephen Fairley is CEO of The Rainmaker Institute is the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms generate more and better referrals and create a 7 figure law practice. Over 6,000 attorneys have benefited from our proven Rainmaker Marketing System. Attorneys: claim your FREE legal marketing CD ‘7 Keys to a 7 Figure Law Practice’ at www.toplawfirmmarketingtips.com

Law firm marketing is all about receiving highly qualified referrals. Every attorney seeks to have a referral based practice. However, many attorneys seem to spend their entire professional career trying to create the perfect practice with little results to show for it.

This is the article on building a referral-based law practice and I would like to focus on some commonly held myths about building a referral based practice for attorneys.

LAW FIRM MARKETING MYTH: Clients are the best source of referrals.

Over the last few years I’ve spoken at more than twenty of the largest state and local bar associations on practical law firm marketing strategies and without fail, I get more resistance to this myth than perhaps any other. Here’s the truth behind the myth: for many lawyers, clients are simply the most obvious source of referrals, not the best source.

The numbers of variables you must take into account when seeking more referrals from your current and former clients are large. Here are just a couple of them:

Is your law firm primarily a B2C or B2B firm (Business to Consumer or Business to Business)? For many B2C attorneys, such as family law, personal injury, and criminal defense, referrals from former clients are generally random events. Either they know someone going through a divorce or they don’t.

Many of our B2B clients, such as general business law, corporate litigation, and commercial real estate, have been able to develop semi-structured client referral programs because their clients often interact with other executives & companies who need similar services.

Have you made clients aware of all the different services you offer? I’m convinced one of the biggest reasons why attorneys don’t receive more referrals is because they don’t take the time to inform & remind their clients of the various services they offer. Most clients immediately put their attorney in a box and believe the only service the lawyer offers is the one they used.

I was speaking today with an attorney who practices business law. He was upset at a client because he helped the client set up an LLC three months ago, but at a recent meeting told the attorney they gave the name of a competing law firm to a friend who needed help with a multi-million dollar business transaction.

The client was shocked when the attorney explained that was his specialty. The client responded by saying, “I’m sorry about that, but you really need to do a better job informing me of what you do and what kind of cases you want because I don’t know.”

How much business have you lost because your clients simply aren’t aware of the various services your firm can provide for them and their associates?

Can clients accurately explain who your ideal target market is? Your ideal target market is the person or company who is most likely to hire you initially, repeatedly and at the highest profit margin. With so many attorneys struggling to define their ideal client it’s no wonder if your clients don’t even know who they should refer to you.

Here’s a small challenge for you, ask 3 of your clients this week who they believe your ideal client is and listen how accurately they respond. If you’re struggling to define who your ideal client is, seek the help of a law firm marketing professional.

Do you regularly and consistently stay connected with clients in a way that adds value? Every law firm needs a client education plan that not only positions your law firm, explains different services you offer and keeps your current clients informed as to what’s going on in your firm, but also acts as a resource and guide to them.

The Rainmaker Institute is the nation’s largest law firm marketing company that specializes in helping small law firms and solo practitioners generate more and better referrals and fill their practice. Over 6,000 attorneys have benefited from applying our proven Rainmaker Marketing System. Stephen Fairley founded the company in 1998. For more information visit www.toplawfirmmarketingtips.com

When it comes to advertising, many companies are pulling in their belts. This is a difficult area. At first glance this seems an area of outgoings that can be trimmed, the efforts of your outlay are not immediately obvious and cutting back seems a fairly obvious saving.

That said how do you generate more, much needed business if nobody knows your business is there? Effective advertising is what a company needs. Target your advertising more efficiently if you need to save money so that it grabs the attention of the desired buyers and doesn’t waste your resources by becoming just another piece of junk mail or a bland waste of money that nobody notices.

Exhibitions are a form of advertising that may initially seem expensive but that actually can be well worth the money. You know that every single person attending that exhibition, from corporate people to passers-by are all interested in that particular industry. That is the beauty of exhibitions. They are one form of advertising where you get all your potential customers under one roof.

You also get to check out the competition. You can see what your competitors are advertising, what they are up to, any new developments that you may not have heard about and the perfect opportunity to steal some customers.

But how can you do this? How can you stand out from the crowd in a whole venue of potential business opportunities when everyone around you has the same goal?

One option is to employ the services of an exhibition design company that will create the visuals for an stand that draws potential business your way. Your exhibition design is the first thing visitors will notice. If it looks shabby or dull, people are much less likely to hang around. As shallow as it may sound, people will always react on first impressions and this is your one shot at gaining the advantage over competitors.

There are specialist companies that can design your exhibition stand extras, from simple banners and flyers to whole colour co-ordinated displays to show your product or service to the ultimate advantage. Eye catching designs that match your company colours can be incorporated in your exhibition design. Humans are simple creatures, they need something that visually appeals immediately and these things will stick in mind. Make enough of an impression and every time your particular corporate colours are seen elsewhere, your company will be brought back to mind. Any interior designer will tell you to never underestimate the importance of colour, it plays to a human level that is very base and instinctive.

Company logos on a larger scale that will stick in mind are also something that you can have added to your exhibition design. Try not to go for anything too complicated. A logo that is self explanatory or visually attractive will be another of those simple things that not only draws business to you but keeps it in the mind of your customers after they have left the exhibition.

Text with a catchy slogan is also something you need to consider implementing on your exhibition stand. A few bold, uncomplicated words that sum what your company is about are a good idea. They can be set in a creative script or kept simple, depending on the industry you are in. To demonstrate, consider a wedding exhibition.
Would you be attracted to a stand of wedding dresses if there was big, bold, black Roman script that stated ‘wedding dresses for sale’ or would you be more tempted to see a decorative, coffee coloured italic script saying something along the lines of ‘look like a princess for a day’.

These are all marketing strategies that you should be thinking about well ahead of any planned exhibition attendance to ensure you get your advertising money’s worth and come away, having left your mark with as many potential sales as possible.

Marketing expert Catherine Harvey looks at how an exhibition stand is a tool that can draw in potential customers.

In my many discussions with small business owners and entrepreneurs, I often hear “time management” being mentioned as a pressure point. Most entrepreneurs wear many hats and take on multiple roles in their businesses, making it hard to juggle all the daily activities.

Unfortunately, since many small business owners don’t consider marketing as a core business activity (what a shame), it’s often the task that gets set aside when time is crunched. But by taking just a few minutes to plan ahead, your future marketing activities can go much smoother; you’ll be able to complete your marketing activities quickly and easily.

All you need are a few marketing tools to add to your arsenal. Set aside just one hour each morning, and by the end of the week your marketing toolbox will be well stocked:

Monday

Craft a very engaging bio of yourself and/or your business. Make it as lively and personal as possible. Prepare several different versions of various lengths, and be sure to keep the bios someplace handy. Next time you post to a message board, contribute a letter to the editor, submit a press release, create a special report, etc. your bio or author’s box will already be written and ready to go.

Tuesday

Write three or four high value, high content articles. Whenever you need a bonus give-away, a joint venture contribution, or an online article, you’ll be prepared. The articles can also be compiled into special reports or broken apart into an autoresponder series or online e-course. Several excellent, evergreen articles are a great addition to your marketing toolbox.

Wednesday

Perform a features and benefits analysis. Small business owners usually know the features of their product or service backwards and forwards. But they don’t always relate these to benefits because, to someone who knows the product so well, the features are the benefits. By having an outline of your benefits prepared in advance, you’ll be one step ahead when it’s time to write your sales letters, craft your marketing message, update your website, etc.

Thursday

Develop and memorize your key marketing message. If a hot prospect, possible investor or media contact asks “What exactly do you do?” you definitely don’t want to stumble over your words. Or worse yet, you don’t want to ramble on and on leaving the prospect sorry he ever asked. You must be able to state clearly, in fifteen seconds or less, who you are, what problems you solve and who you solve them for. And you must be able to do it in your sleep!

Friday

Prepare a press release template. There are tons of free publicity opportunities out there for small business owners, but most entrepreneurs don’t take advantage of them because they think it’s too time consuming. By having your press release template prepared in advance, you’ll be able to jump on those free publicity opportunities as soon s they present themselves. And don’t forget to add your short bio to the end of press release.

Action Item

Pull out your calendar or day planner right now and block off one hour every day next week. Be prepared to devote this time to developing your marketing arsenal.

“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent van Gogh

Karen Scharf is an Indianapolis marketing consultant who works with small business owners and entrepreneurs. She offers several whitepapers, free reports and checklists, including her FREE Can-Spam checklist and FREE email pre-flight checklist to ensure your emails get delivered, get opened and get read. Download your copies at http://www.ModernImage.com.

I just returned from a one-day trip to Chicago. In the bumper-to-bumper traffic, it actually took over 7 minutes to drive 1 mile. Under normal circumstances, I might have found this a bit frustrating, but since Chicago is a mecca for advertising, I actually enjoyed sitting in the car studying the myriad of billboards dotting the landscape.

One billboard in particular caught my attention. It was a cut-away shot of a new minivan, the one with the pop-up table in the back. The billboard showed the interior of the van with four captain’s chairs encircling the pop-up table with a headline that said “Your Table Is Served”.

I actually think it’s a neat minivan (although the exterior is a bit boxy) and I have to wonder why no one thought to put a table in a minivan before now. But I think the billboard missed the mark.

The billboard showed an empty minivan - no people, no smiling faces, no family activities. Just the minivan and the table. Unfortunately, no one buys a minivan for the table. They buy it for the lifestyle the minivan promises: the kids happily playing with each other, getting along just like best friends, smiling and enjoying each other’s company, as the family comfortably floats down the road on their family vacation.

It’s hard to convey that impression without including the family in the photo. Without the picture of the smiling kids all getting along, it’s just as easy to look at the empty minivan and mentally hear, “Mom, he’s touching me!”

I know you’ve probably heard it all before, but even a high-priced Chicago advertising agency has forgotten the lesson. So I thought it was worth repeating… people buy products or services for the benefits, not the features.

Unfortunately, as small business owners, we sometimes have a hard time distinguishing the two. We know our product or service backwards and forwards, inside and out; we might have even created it from scratch. For us, the features are the benefits because we know so well what the features will bring.

But it’s important to remember that we are not our customers. Our customers don’t know our products inside and out. They do not make the mental leap from features to benefits. We need to show them, to spell out exactly what our product or service will do for them.

Here’s an easy exercise to help you highlight the benefits of your product. Grab a sheet of paper and draw a line down the center. On the left hand side, list all the features of your product: its color, its size, its durability, etc. Then, for each of those features, ask yourself “So what?” What does this do for the customer? How will this help the customer? What will the customer get from this? How will this solve the customer’s problem?

Use your answers to develop benefit statements for each of your features.

Make your benefit statements emotional. Link them to universal motivators whenever possible. If you’re having a hard time uncovering the benefits, close your eyes and imagine your customer using your product or service. What is she doing? What is her life like? How are things different for her now that she has your product?

Replace your features with these benefit statements in all your marketing materials. Bullet point your benefit statements in your sales letters. Use your benefit statements on your website. Include your benefit statements in your headlines.

Find pictures representing your benefits to use in your brochures and sell sheets. If your product offers fun-filled family rides, show pictures of the children smiling and getting along. If your product saves your customers tons of time, show pictures of people relaxing and enjoying their new-found freedom.

Remember, your customers do not live and breath your product like you do. You must tell them, in no uncertain terms, exactly what your product will do for them and exactly why they should buy your product.

Action Item
1. List at least three features of your product or service.
2. Ask yourself “So what?” in order to create a benefit statement for each feature.
3. Find a picture representing at least one benefit statement that you can use in your future marketing.

Karen Scharf is an Indianapolis marketing consultant who works with small business owners and entrepreneurs. She offers several whitepapers, free reports and checklists, including her FREE Can-Spam checklist and FREE email pre-flight checklist to ensure your emails get delivered, get opened and get read. Download your copies at http://www.ModernImage.com.

These days the mantra for modern business is marketing. Marketing plays an integral role in your end results of sales for your organiation. While you may understand the benefits, for many the process of article submission may be better left to experts, allowing you to busy yourself with other important tasks that are in the pipeline. For this reason many freelance companies are taking on the role of article submission. By outsourcing this work you can save precious time and energy for your actual business and specialist expertise. The challenge then is selecting a group to outsource to, and feeling sure that they will submit your articles resourcefully and aptly.

There are certain things you should really consider prior to making your selection of an article submission service. Firstly, take a look at the list of sites that they have recommended for your article submission. Check them initially to be sure they actually exist, and are not some site created by the outsourcing company for the purpose of false submissions. Secondly, look at the sites quality and number of visitors (tools such as Alexa and Google Toolbar can help with this). It is pointless if you have articles submitted only to discover that the site they are placed on is never even visited. Unscrupulous organizations have been known to develop sites to show the client that the article has been submitted; but the reality is that the article will never be read. Check all the sites on the list and see if they are indexed on Google. Part of the ultimate purpose of the submission is that your site will be indexed, so if your articles are on a site that is not indexed by popular search engines then not only will your article not be read, it will not lead anyone to your website and blog and so on.

As with any marketing program, the target audience needs to be recognized before making a list of sites. You need to be sure that your efforts are concentrated on submission to those sites most frequently visited by the target segment for your business. Quite simply, when you focus your submission on relevant sites then you will get more quality traffic, submit your articles to the wrong site and there will be few or no readers, hence no generation of traffic. This is where using a tool such as Alexa becomes useful. Alexa checks the traffic on each given site and likewise the sites on your list can be checked using Alexa. If the sites are indexed you will also be able to analyze the traffic of the selected sites using the Alexa tools. It is important to always keep that target segment in mind when making any posting on any website. If your posting is only likely to be viewed by people who do not have any interest in the topic, then chances are they are not going to read the posted material, hence you are unlikely to benefit with any traffic for your efforts.

Be aware that certain sites will not take articles if they are submitted to them by software. With so many spamming problems, this is more a precautionary step taken by many good quality sites these days. As the individual submission step ensures that there can be a limited or lesser number of submissions made, sites are therefore only taking copy submitted in this manner. An additional tip is to check if the article submission company proof reads your articles. It is very important to have error free articles, as mistakes do reflect upon you. When you are checking your own work it is always much easier to miss mistakes because you anticipate what should be there. No matter how many re readings a writer gives to the article, it is always better to have the articles edited by another party.

Any good company will always prioritize the search engine optimization of your articles. Making the articles search engine friendly ensures that the moment any related keywords are entered your article will show up in the first few. Always avoid spamming, focusing on maintaining an optimum level of submission as an ongoing project. Flooding the internet with loads of articles may in fact be counter productive and risk your site being blacklisted by Google. Choose your article submission service carefully and with a view to a long term effort on both sides. Consistency and ongoing initiative is the best way to go, so select a quality provider that will work on the bigger picture for you, not simply take the money and run!

Deep Arora is an Internet marketer with over 7 years of online experience and he teaches internet marketing from his blog at HowIDid.com. Check out his blog for some amazing techniques today..